[luau] MSWindows

Jimen Ching jching at flex.com
Sat Jul 27 21:22:00 PDT 2002


On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Daniel J Nishimura wrote:
>(i.e. The start button on the bottom lefthand side, the task bar,
>etc...).

Just to point out--the 'menu' at the screen corner was first seen on the
Macintosh.  And the window'ed interface was invented by Xerox PARC.
That's right, neither Apple nor Microsoft invented the GUI.

As for the Open Source question, since I have contributed to a few
projects myself, I may have some insight into how some Open Source
contributors think.

Most of the projects that I follow are from the traditional UNIX mindset.
This means that a lot of, if not all, things are done with the command
line interface (CLI) and configurations with text files (editable with
vi).  This is why a lot of popular software have text based configuration
methodology (i.e. Apache, GCC, Xfree86, etc, etc).  This group of people
grew up with the old Unix philosophy and like the power it offers.  I am
part of this group.

Then there is the new generation.  These are the people that grew up with
Macintoshes and MS-Windows.  They like the dialog boxes and the binary
configuration files.  These programmers also like the IDE and prefer to
ignore the details of a tool.  I.e. ask them which optimizations are
enabled by gcc with -O2 vs. -O3.  They probably don't even know where to
find the answer.

As most of you already know, the open source/free software world is mostly
made up of people in the former group.  This is why free software are so
hard to configure and are mainly CLI tools.  That is because they use
their own software, and this is what they prefer.  Now, does this answer
the question of 'why aren't there more user friendly software?' The answer
is, 'user friendly' usually means 'for people who don't know what they're
doing'.  Now, if you are part of this group of programmers, to whom would
you rather target your software--people who are willing to read the manual
and learn to use the tool correctly or people who rather push buttons and
click check boxes?

This may sound elitist to some people.  But there are people who build
suped up engines for their cars on the weekends.  Open source/free
software is no different.  The difference is in the user base and the day
job.  When these weekend car mechanics design engines on their day jobs,
they do not expect the car buyer to upgrade the engine themselves.  But
when a programmer designs an application, they have to think how the
enduser is going to install the software.

The average Joe on the street doesn't complain if the engine is hard to
install.  But if a software application breaks something during
installation, the same individual blames the programmer for creating a
crappy system.  The problem is, people think they are smart enough to
install and configure their own computer.  When they realize this isn't
true, they question why doesn't the software engineers design easier to
use software, as if that was the problem to begin with.  But these same
people never asked why mechanical engineers don't design easier car
engines.  Why is that?  This is not a rhetorical question.  I really want
to know why people think they should be able to configure their own
software.  We are talking about the same people who can't even set the
clocks on their VCR's.  The VCR's now have automatic clock setting
circuits.  Yet, these people think a computer should be easier to use than
a VCR?

When you buy your software from a college dropout, who's greatest
programming achievement is the Basic programming language, do you really
expect the software to be flawless?  Would you ride in a car designed by a
college dropout?  Would you go to a doctor who didn't finish his or her
education?  And yet, the public at large thinks a software engineering
degree can be obtained from a mail order educational system.  Sally
Struthers is selling certications for software programming.  And people
wonder why the software industry is so crappy.

By the way, Linux and Unix isn't harder to configure, it is just that the
configuration is NOT LIKE Windows.  People are so brain washed into the
Windows way of doing things, that anything else is considered 'difficult'.

Sorry if this turned into a rant.  I am just tired of people complaining
why Unix is so user unfriendly, and why programmers like myself flock to
Linux.  Even if you look just at the surface only, the answer is so
obvious.

--jc
-- 
Jimen Ching (WH6BRR)      jching at flex.com     wh6brr at uhm.ampr.org






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